Peroxygen bleaching agents, such as hydrogen peroxide, or precursors to hydrogen peroxide such as sodium perborate and sodium percarbonate, are commonly used as bleaching agents in heavy duty granular detergents for laundry application. Attempts have been made in the past to incorporate peroxy bleaching agents in aqueous and non-aqueous liquid detergents for a stable composition and there has always been a lack of stability of peroxy bleaching agent due to its high solubility in aqueous mediums and the decomposition of unstable hydrogen peroxide. Thus, there is no liquid detergent containing bleach commercially available which has an acceptable degree of chemical stability.
Heavy duty liquid detergent compositions (HDL's) commercially available at present typically comprise organic surfactants, enzymes and perfumes. These component; are generally incompatible with peroxygen bleaches. Therefore, no peroxygen bleach containing liquid detergent compositions are commercially available which have long term storage stability.
The preparation of alkyl and aryl silicon peroxide and their uses in washing compositions have been disclosed. For example, in PCT Patent Publication No. W09714701 is disclosed the preparation of alkyl and aryl silicon peroxides by the reaction of alkoxy or aryloxysilane with H.sub.2 O.sub.2, more specifically tetraalkoxy and tetraaryloxy silane with H.sub.2 O.sub.2 and the use of these silicon peroxides as bleaches.
In European Patent Publication No. 0812907 is disclosed the use of hydroperoxides such as organomineral hydroperoxides including (CH.sub.3).sub.3 SiOOH, (C.sub.6 H.sub.5).sub.2 CH.sub.3 SiOOH, (C.sub.6 H.sub.5).sub.3 SiOOH and (n-C.sub.6 H.sub.13).sub.3 SiOOH in a bleaching composition. EP'907 also discloses a process of bleaching fabrics, starting from a liquid composition comprising a hydroperoxide, and discloses that improved fabric safety in terms of loss of tensile strength in the fabrics is obtained by using the hydroperoxides which generate free radicals of lower reactivity.
It has been surprisingly found that the stable aqueous liquid bleach containing detergents can be obtained by using bis(organosilyl)peroxide as a source of active oxygen. The bis(organosilyl)peroxide containing aqueous emulsions and solutions are stable over a wide range of pH and showed a little or no loss of peroxy content when stored for six months at 25.degree. C.